Scent Of The Pine, You Know How I Feel – Day 12 of The Pollyanna Plan

Today I’m finding it hard to write. You see, I’m not feeling so good, but in the spirit of The Pollyanna Plan, I won’t let this deter me from finding my reason to be glad/happy/joyful and completing my blog post for the day.

I have a lot of food intolerances and today I’m suffering from flu like symptoms, which I now know to be triggered by a food intolerance. I’m slowly working out by trial and error, otherwise known as the hard way, what I can and can’t eat, which is great, but the downside to that are days like this where I have to wait for the symptoms to calm down.

I know what you’re thinking, not very happy so far, but bear with me, cos I’m getting there!

In the past, when I had these reactions, I had no idea that they were linked to the foods I was eating and I thought I was coming down with the flu, or some other nasty virus.

So, it is a great relief to know that I’m not on the verge of some yucky illness and these symptoms will soon pass.

Really, I feel so much more chilled out and positive about it all. Now I know why I’m feeling bad and what I can do to stop it from happening again i.e don’t eat that food!

I even managed to go out for a while this morning and went with my Mum to collect some kindling wood for our log burning fire – I did point out that I felt like we had travelled back in time.

It was another glorious day and we found a glade in the countryside scattered with almond and pine trees and plenty of pinecones, needles and small branches on the ground.

The beautiful scent of the pine took me back to my childhood when my class at school performed an outdoor version of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in a gladed pinewood. I loved acting and really got into the part. I was Titania the fairy and my Mum made me a dress out of an old nightgown – it was much nicer than it sounds. My Mum has skills – I loved that dress!

It’s funny how a smell can trigger memories and good feelings. It also brought to mind the line, “Scent of the pine, you know how I feel,” from the Nina Simone song.

I’ve just listened to it again and I’ve discovered that the words describe perfectly how I feel about The Pollyanna Plan and my progress so far.

“It’s a new dawn, It’s a new day, It’s a new life for me. And I’m feeling good.”